A longtime member of the Rotary Club of Edmonton Riverview was among a small group of Albertans to whom Lieutenant-Governor Salma Lukhani presented King Charles III Coronation Medals during a recent ceremony at Government House.
The Government of Canada created the medal to mark the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III on May 6, 2023, and to award 30,000 deserving individuals. This is the first time that Canada has issued a medal to mark a coronation.
Brent Collingwood joined Rotary in June 2000, when he returned to Edmonton after nearly seven years in Asia where he was the opening general manager for golf courses in Japan, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
He was introduced to Rotary by former club president Judy Harcourt (now Judy Brown) who invited Brent to attend the Riverview club’s annual changeover as her guest.
Judy was the first woman to serve as president of the Riverview Rotary Club. Later, she became the first female Rotary District 5370 Governor, during the 2003-2004 Rotary year.
“This is a great group of people and I want to hang out with them,” Brent told his wife Adele. “I came for the social aspect and stayed for the service component and fellowship of Rotary.”
He is particularly drawn to service projects focused on youth and seniors. “Young people are our future and seniors are people who paid their dues, lived their lives but sometimes seemed to have been forgotten.”
Members of the Rotary Club of Edmonton Riverview regularly volunteer with the Operation Friendship Seniors Society, which provides accommodation to approximately 300 seniors in the inner city who might otherwise not have access to safe and affordable housing options. The club is also involved in initiatives for students in inner-city elementary schools, including at Norwood, the elementary school that Brent attended.
There is an extensive youth services component to the club, including sponsoring the Centennial Interact Club at Ross Sheppard High School, several Rotary district youth programs, and a student’s participation in the Rotary Adventures in Citizenship, hosted annually by the Rotary Club of Ottawa.
The club also provides financial support to the University of Alberta’s High School Model United Nations, which each February brings hundreds of students to the campus to learn about and debate international issues.
As a Rotarian, Brent has filled several positions at the club and at the district level, including club president for 2005-2006—Rotary’s centennial year—and District Governor between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024.
District 5370 includes 59 clubs across Northern Alberta, Northwest Saskatchewan, Northeast British Columbia and the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Geographically, it is the second largest district in the world.
During his one-year term, Brent drove 22,000 km to visit each club at least once. He also flew to Yellowknife and Whitehorse to visit the clubs in those cities.
“The greatest joy of being a district governor is travelling and seeing what clubs are doing,” he says.
A particular focus of Brent’s year as district governor was mental health, after 2023-2024 Rotary International president Gordon McInally—a member of the Rotary Club of South Queensferry in Scotland—encouraged incoming district governors to take it back to their clubs.
“This theme was captured in my ‘Don’t Bottle It Up’ campaign,” Brent says.
When he was not on the road, Brent was frequently involved in district meetings, committee meetings and in planning for the district conference he hosted in Edmonton, in May 2024.
“I am looking forward to having my evenings back,” he says.
Although the term for a Rotary district governor is just one year, becoming DG requires a four-year commitment, beginning as the DG nominee two years before the DG’s term begins.
In the two years leading up to his year as DG, Brent attended Zone 28/32 Summits and a Rotary Assembly in Orlando, Fla. The Assembly brought together more than 500 incoming district governors and their partners from around the world, to meet the incoming Rotary International president and for a week on intensive training.
In addition to those in-person events, Brent regularly met with his DG “classmates” from Zone 28/32 via Zoom. Zone 28 and 32 includes Rotary districts from across Canada, along the U.S. eastern seaboard, the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and Bermuda.
Despite his term having ended, Brent continues to be active at the district level as Past District Governor and at the zone level, where as a learning leaders facilitator he is responsible for preparing Rotarians to lead their districts in two year’s time.
In addition to its reference to his leadership of Rotary District 5370, Brent’s coronation medal certificate referred to his time as chair of the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta and to the three years he served as the executive director of the River Valley Alliance after retiring from the university.
The River Valley Alliance is a not-for-profit organization made up of the six shareholder municipalities that border the North Saskatchewan River in the Edmonton region. Its goal is “to preserve, protect and enhance the largest metropolitan river valley park system in the world – a legacy for generations to come – by connecting the trail system and making it easier for all to access and enjoy.”
Rotarian Brent Collingwood and Lieutenant Governor Salma Lukhani.
Brent Collingwood’s Charles III Coronation Medal.
During his year as District Governor, Brent Collingwood launched a “Don’t Bottle It Up” campaign to encourage discussion on mental health issues.